I have broad interests and experience as a journalist, covering the auto business, the consumer-packaged goods industry, entrepreneurship, and others, as well as politics, culture, media and religion. I used to cover the car business for The Wall Street Journal, which nominated me and some colleagues for a Pulitzer Prize for our coverage of General Motors. I've also covered autos for Edmunds.com, AutoTrader.com, Automotive News and Advertising Age. I am a major contributor to Chief Executive Magazine, Brandchannel.com, Townhall Magazine, New Nutrition Business magazine and the Journal, among other outlets. I hope that having lived around Flyover Country for most of my life gives me a grounded perspective.

Why Ford's Sheryl Connelly Has Nearly Everyone's Dream Job

She gets to attend TED conferences, think ethereal thoughts, and help weave important corporate strategies for the future — and, truth be told, bears little blame if they don’t actually work out. Those are among the reasons why, as head of global consumer trends and futuring for Ford, Sheryl Connelly says the one question she gets more than any other is, “How can I have your job?”

Think of Connelly as the Faith Popcorn of the auto industry, in charge of helping Ford stay ahead — preferably way ahead — of the trends outside the industry that will be shaping it for years to come. Challenge or opportunity, it’s the job of the 44-year-old, multi-degreed soothsayer to help her bosses figure out how Ford can take advantage of what’s going on in a fast-moving world and capitalize on it — or at least not be blindsided by it.

In fact, Connelly’s insights helped Ford make the right call about the extent of its investment in crossover-utility vehicles several years ago, for example, and about appreciating the distinctive characteristics of the massive Millennial generation. These days, she’s helping her Ford colleagues deal with something she calls consumer “feature fatigue,” in which car buyers are overwhelmed by option choices and the notion that they can’t possibly fully utilize every amenity made available to them in today’s vehicles.

“There’s a paradox of choice, where people are overwhelmed by the choices they’re given,” she told me. “You think about the auto industry and how prolific the choices are these days. If you’re only buying a car once every 10 years like a lot of Americans do, think about how daunting it is do to the research on what you need.” So Ford is “starting to address this,” she said, in part by “simplifying our packages.”

Only two other major OEMs in the U.S. market employ someone in a position similar to hers, Connelly said. But actually, in her role, she doesn’t focus on the auto industry. Instead, Connelly mainly engages what she calls “STEEP” — social, technological, economic, environmental and political — trends. In doing so, she collects, analyzes and synthesizes thoughts and ideas from leaders in academia, health care, government and the corporate world, including grist from fellow futurists at Wal-Mart, Mars and Nike.

Discerning trends is “pattern recognition,” she said. “It’s like standing on the moon looking at a battlefield on earth,” said Connelly, who’s been with Ford since 1996 and part of its global trends department for eight years. “Nothing is [very] close. I’m looking out two to 20 years. Of course I’ve got responsibilities in the here and now as well.” And unlike Popcorn, the famous New York-based futurist and head of BrainReserve, Connelly is very much beholden to the prognostication needs of one “client”: Ford.

So while Connelly routinely conducts “futuring exercises that look 10 years out,” she also must deal with an auto-industry development cycle that typically takes only two or three years. “I’m always trying to change the tone of the discussion,” she said.

Steve Frazee, executive director of the TED — for Technology Entertainment and Design — office in Grand Rapids, Mich., TEDx Grand Rapids, has hosted Connelly at conferences, and he’s been impressed by her even amid the flock of deep thinkers that TED events draw. “It’s a skill to be able to bring in lots of different information from lots of different attributes and figure out where they intersect and make sense to people,” he said. “And she’s a genius at that.”

As beguiling as the job title might seem to people today, “futurist” isn’t something most people set out to become — and neither did Connelly. But she does have an eclectic background. The Michigan native was a finance graduate, MBA and J.D. recipient, and then litigation attorney in Buffalo before joining Ford. Her first stint was at a consumer call center; then she schmoozed dealers in Ford’s Pittsburgh sales region.

Finally she landed in what was then a global consumer-trends department. And while the future is still taken very seriously at Ford, Connelly was the only member of the eight-person department to survive a cost-cutting move in 2006.

In her unique role at Ford, she said, Connelly actually spends “95 percent of my time reading. If you don’t like to read, you might not like the job.” Another favorite way for Connelly to wrap her head around a topic is to tap into yet another aspect of herself: an artsy side. When experiencing the presentations of fellow executives or other thinkers, she’ll usually draw notes in graphic form that match what’s happening in front of her — basically illustrating the event while she’s sitting there.

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I completely with Sheryl’s assessment of ‘feature fatigue.’ Researching what consumers really ‘need’, perhaps best done through direct observation, is a great investment. Forgive me for invoking the genius of Steve Jobs, but he famously designed Apple products that he felt made sense. Paraphrased, he once said something like ‘consumers don’t know what they want.’ True.

BTW, an editorial comment. ‘Sync’ and ‘MyFordTouch’ have a long way to go. Granted I’ve only seen one ‘demo’, but I was not impressed with either the ‘intuitiveness’ or their practical use. Seems they would contribute greatly to distracted driving. The voice command feature was especially un-useful. Love this article!